


solitary confinement

by MercurialComet



Series: five man band [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Missing Scene, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25043287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialComet/pseuds/MercurialComet
Summary: ten years of darkness and how rius deals with them
Series: five man band [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764427
Kudos: 3





	solitary confinement

Rius spends his first year running. There’s not much else he can do after Noctis doesn’t show up and the rest of them escape the hangar.

He loses sight of them when they split up. There’s no time to try and find them, not with daemons on his ass. He feels alone again, back at square one, running out of a city and away from the Empire.

Year two isn’t much better. He finds a functional cart and pushes it as hard as he can, shooting any daemons that try to attack him. Getting out of the Capital takes at least a week with the constant darkness. Getting out of the Empire takes a lot longer.

He still sees no one else.

Year three places him in Lestallum at first. He’s the only one there from the King’s group, and Talcott tells him that they haven’t heard from anyone.

It feels empty without them, and Rius makes the stupid decision to return back to his apartment in the City.

Year four chronicles his entire journey back home. It involves sneaking past countless daemons, and praying that his eyesight in the dark is as good as he thinks it is, but he ends up in his bedroom, going through his drawers to find clothes to change into after he takes a shower.

He manages to scrounge up enough power in the building to safely light his apartment. He falls asleep in his own bed after 5 years of fighting.

Year five is when he finds that he can’t go back to Lestallum. The streets of the City are too dangerous to sneak through, and the subway tunnels are worse. His apartment becomes a makeshift haven, and Rius finds himself able to loot a few convenience stores for rations and water.

Year six is when the power runs out, and Rius is running for his life yet again. He ducks under a swipe and runs into the subway. A flash of light catches his eye and he quickly shoots his dagger, wrapping the rope around a metal support and swinging himself upwards. He forces himself to calm down and take deep breaths. Later, he understands that this is his new haven now, a little alcove in the ceiling that a flashlight keeps lit.

Year seven sees the last of his shirts get destroyed. They’ve been dwindling over time, even before Noctis disappeared. Rius always seemed to have bad luck with his shirts, either a claw catching them instead of him or him tearing them apart for a makeshift bandage. He sighs and shivers as he crawls back into his alcove, the metal cold against his skin.

Year eight is when he manages to put the jacket together. It’s horribly made and shoddily mismatched and Rius knows that if he wasn’t under so much pressure and actually had time to learn, he would’ve done a better job. But it works for now, and it gives him some sort of tactile comfort.

Year nine is when he has to use his dagger on his hair. He doesn’t even think about it when he slices through it, falls out of the daemon’s grip, and stabs the daemon in the eye.

It’s at the end of the tenth year when he hears the sounds of fighting in the subway. At first, he thinks that some poor Hunters bit off more they can chew, and he even thinks about using the distraction to start running again to see if he can get out of the tunnel. But then he hears the familiar sound of Noctis warping, and his heart stops.

He doesn’t say anything as the fighting grows closer, as it moves under him, as it ends. But as he hears the footsteps start to walk away, he has to know. “Noct?” He whispers, afraid that he imagined all of it. “Noctis, is that you?”

The subway is quiet for a moment before he hears his name being called. Rius has a death grip on his dagger as he drops from his haven. He lands in front of Noctis. And Prompto. And Gladio. And Ignis. They’ve changed. They look good, still up and moving, able to fight. Their clothes seem more regal, and Rius wonders what he’s missed.

But he doesn’t want to think about it now. “It’s nice to see you guys again.” He says with a smile, showcasing the gap in his mouth he got earlier in the year. He can’t help but remember their first meeting, Prompto aiming a gun at him, him aiming a gun back. It’s practically an old memory now. “Sorry I couldn’t make it out of here.”

He’s barely ready for the group hug when it comes.


End file.
